Rest for the Weary
by LurkerLa
Summary: It's the little things that keep us awake at night. SheppardWeir


Title: Rest for the Weary  
Author: La  
Rating: T+  
Summary: It's the little things that keep us awake at night.  
Pairing: Sheppard/Weir, of course  
Spoilers: Well, Home's the only obvious one. But I've seen all that's been aired so far, so I might have slipped something else in.  
Author's Note: This was sparked (heh – sparked) by a few comments at GW, and then my imagination took hold. I own neither the characters of Stargate: Atlantis, nor books from which Elizabeth quotes. The information for the quotations can be found in a second author's note at the end of the story.

Much thanks toSally for reading this and giving me a summary. Also, thanks go to Athena for providing me with some of the quotations. And thanks to both of them as well as Melyanna for help with the title, especially since I was being difficult about it.

If it seems like this is two different stories smushed together, forgive me. It's late, and I'm tired. Also, I'm not sure of the ending. :)

* * *

"'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,'" Elizabeth muttered as she rubbed her eyes with one hand, tapping her stylus on her computer with the other.

She made two notations before her eyes started to blur again. She closed them for a moment, wishing she didn't have to open them anytime soon.

"'Halfway down a bystreet of one of our New England towns stands a rusty wooden house, with seven acutely peaked gables.'" Well, that one took enough effort to shake her out of her stupor for a bit, Elizabeth thought as she touched her stylus to the screen again.

"Elizabeth?"

Startled, she looked up to find Kate Heightmeyer standing awkwardly in the doorway. "Dr. Heightmeyer! Kate. What can I do for you?"

"Talking to yourself?"

Elizabeth smiled guiltily at being caught. "Actually, I'm trying to stay awake by quoting as many first lines of books as I can."

Kate looked blank for a minute, then laughed. "You know, most people just pinch themselves or drink coffee."

"Pinching hurts, and the last of the good coffee's gone. I'm not desperate enough yet to drink what's left."

Coming the rest of the way into the room, Kate stopped in front of the desk. "If you're that tired, you should sleep."

"I know," Elizabeth replied, rubbing a hand over her eyes. "I can't, though. Our weekly check in with the SGC is in the morning, and I have to have this report ready by then."

Kate nodded. "That's what's keeping me up, too. I'm just reviewing my reports before I turn in. I was taking a brief walk to refresh myself when I saw the light in your office."

Blinking blearily at the other woman, Elizabeth indicated the white couches that lined her office walls. "Would you like to finish reading in here? I think the company might help me."

"Sounds good. I'll just go grab what I need and be right back."

As she left the room, Kate could hear Elizabeth muttering to herself. "'It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.'"

When she got back to Elizabeth's office, Kate found the other woman leaning back in her chair, stylus dangling from two fingers and eyes closed.

"Elizabeth?" she said tentatively, hating to wake her but knowing that Elizabeth would want to get her reports done.

"'In 1815 Monsieur Charles-Franços-Bienvenu Myriel was Bishop of Digne,'" Elizabeth slurred, the stylus dropping to the floor. The sound of it hitting startled her awake, and she sat up sharply.

"Kate?" She swiped a hand across her mouth, subtly checking for drool. "I fell asleep."

"So it seems," Kate agreed, dropping onto one of the sofas. "I think we need to check in with each other every five minutes or so, to make sure we haven't dropped off."

"Sounds good," Elizabeth agreed, leaning over to pick up her stylus. "John's going to kill me tomorrow."

Kate's ears couldn't help but perk up at that. She tried to avoid gossip as much as possible, not wanting to have too biased an opinion of anyone who might come to see her, but even she had heard some of the rumors about the two expedition leaders. "Oh?"

"He overheard Carson telling me I needed more sleep last week, and every night since then he's been checking on me to make sure I go to bed. I actually wound up sneaking back out of my room tonight." Elizabeth smiled ruefully as she admitted her deceit.

Kate smiled with her, then dropped her eyes to the report in front of her. She couldn't help thinking about what it said about Elizabeth's relationship with John that she would allow him to bully her into sleeping just to make him feel better.

Silence descended on the room for a few minutes as both women returned to their work. After a bit, Kate softly said, "Elizabeth?"

"'It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife,'" was the reply. Kate looked up and saw that Elizabeth was smiling at her.

"Still awake," she said straightening in her chair a bit.

It was the last time either of them spoke for a good long while. Elizabeth didn't realize how long until she awoke with a pain in her neck and a stylus shaped mark on her cheek.

Why was she at her desk and not in her warm bed? She remembered finishing her report, then dropping her head into her hands just long enough to work up the energy to walk back to her quarters and then...

Obviously she'd never mustered that energy, Elizabeth realized. She looked across the office to where Kate had been reading and saw that the other woman was sprawled uncomfortably half on the couch and half on the floor.

Elizabeth stood and moved around the desk to crouch in front of her. "Kate?" she said quietly.

No response. "Kate!"

The sharper tone of voice woke the psychologist. Groaning, Kate got to her feet and stretched. "We fell asleep?"

"We fell asleep," Elizabeth answered.

"How long until you send the report?"

Elizabeth glanced at her watch. "We've still got a few hours if you want to try to find your bed."

Kate nodded and picked up her computer. "I think I might just do that."

Gathering up her own belongings, Elizabeth gestured for Kate to precede her out of the room. "Come on. We'll walk together and make sure the other one stays upright."

When they reached the doors of her quarters, Elizabeth opened them and gestured for Kate to follow her inside. Although she desperately wanted to get to her own bed, the psychologist stepped into Elizabeth's quarters, curiosity as to how the expedition leader lived overriding her exhaustion momentarily.

Elizabeth dropped her computer onto the bed and moved to a small dresser on one wall. "I just remembered that I promised you some of the chocolate I've been hording, and if I don't give it to you now I won't remember again until I've eaten it all."

Kate lifted her chin and made an affirmative noise in response, too tired to think of anything to say. While Elizabeth searched a drawer for the promised chocolate, Kate idly picked up the top book of a stack beside the bed.

"_A Tale of Two Cities_," she read. Below it were several more books, ones Kate recognized as coming from the communal collection. She smiled. Elizabeth had been hording them, it seemed. They were stacked neatly, and from her angle Kate could only make out a few titles – _Les Misérables_, _1984_, _War and Peace_.

"So this is where you get the quotes from," she said as Elizabeth came to stand beside her, chocolate in hand. "No _War and Peace_ last night, though." She smiled her thanks as she took the chocolate.

Elizabeth shook her head. "I don't have that one memorized yet, and John won't let me reread it until he's finished it."

Kate refrained from pointing out that it might be hard for him to finish it while it was in _Elizabeth's_ room as her eyes took in new information about the quarters in front of her.

The jacket draped so carelessly over that chair looked too big for Elizabeth, and it was covering what was clearly a man's vest. A few scraps of paper covered the table beside the bed, and Kate would swear that the writing was masculine, not Elizabeth's neat script.

Elizabeth seemed to realize what Kate was seeing at the same moment that Kate did, and she hastily turned to the door. "Well, I'm sure you're tired. Sleeping on the couch in the office can't have been very comfortable."

Startled from her reflections, Kate took a moment to respond. "No, it wasn't. Thanks for the chocolate, but I'd better get on my way to my room now."

She made a hasty departure from the room, not really wanting to dwell on the fact that all evidence pointed to Elizabeth not always being alone in her quarters. And if Kate had a good suspicion about who was the other occupant, she wasn't going to say anything.

She turned the last corner before her quarters, and nearly crashed into someone. "Careful, there, Doc," John said, steadying her with a hand before smiling and continuing on the way from which she'd come.

Kate looked after him for a moment, then shook her head. She was too tired to think about this right now.

* * *

Once Kate was gone, Elizabeth took a good look around her quarters, noticing the little bits of evidence of John. They so rarely spent the night in her quarters anymore that it hadn't occurred to her that he might have left things there.

Well, she'd just have to trust Kate not to say anything. Glancing at her watch, she decided that if she attempted to sleep now for the few hours before she'd have to get up, she'd only end up more tired. Instead, she'd take a shower and then try to find some less-than-awful coffee. There was always plenty of work to occupy her until it was time to contact the SGC.

"'Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again,'" she said as she reached for a towel, determined not to fall asleep in the shower.

When she left the bathroom a good twenty minutes later, feeling only slightly refreshed, she was still quoting. "'In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.'"

"Tolkien?" John's voice came from the direction of her bed and she dropped her towel, startled.

"John!" Elizabeth said. "I didn't hear you come in."

"You were in the shower." He let his eyes drift over her unclad form, and she shot him an exasperated look as she realized where his attention had gone. Picking up her towel once more, she finished drying as she pulled a change of clothes from the dresser.

John shifted slightly on the bed, watching her dress. "You know," he said conversationally, "I swear you were supposed to go to bed hours ago."

"I had work to do."

"Uh huh. And now you've finished it, so why aren't you going to bed?"

"I'm not sleepy."

"The quoting says otherwise. You know what Carson said, Elizabeth. If you don't start getting more rest, he's going to put you on medical restriction."

Elizabeth sat on the bed beside him, working a brush through the wet tangles of her hair. John's hand covered hers as he took over, gently working out the snarls she'd acquired during her long day.

Her head dropped to her chest as he worked his magic, eyes closing of their own volition. But she didn't want to sleep just yet. "'A squat grey building of only thirty-four stories.'"

"No quoting," John chided. "I'm making you sleepy."

He was, and to pay him back for it she turned her head up to his neck and kissed him. He made a contented sound, so she tilted her head back further, feeling the bristles of the brush press against her scalp as she nipped at his earlobe.

"Elizabeth." Did his voice squeak just then? "That's not going to lead to sleep."

Instead of answering him, Elizabeth said, "'Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically.'"

She winced slightly as John pulled the brush through her hair with a touch more haste and a good deal less gentleness than before.

"Before I met you, I would never have believed that a quoting from books could be such a turn on."

Elizabeth smiled against his skin at the need in his voice and said "'Two households, both alike in dignity/In fair Verona, where we lay our scene/From ancient grudge break to new mutiny/Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean,'" and John dropped the brush and grabbed her face to kiss her and they both forgot about sleep for a while.

* * *

Author's Note 2: I've read some, but not all, of the books Elizabeth quotes from. Her quotations are all first lines from the following novels, in order of her quoting:

_A Tale of Two Cities_ by Charles Dickens; _The House of Seven Gables_ by Nathaniel Hawthorne; _1984_ by George Orwell; _Les Misérables_ by Victor Hugo; _Pride and Prejudice_ by Jane Austen; _Rebecca_ by Daphne Du Maurier; _The Hobbit_ by J.R.R. Tolkien; _Brave New World_ by Aldous Huxley; _Lady Chatterley's Lover_ by D.H. Lawrence; and, of course, the famous _Romeo and Juliet_ by William Shakespeare.


End file.
